“The image of the moon according to the opinion of Picatrix is the form of a man who has the head of a bird, and he holds a stick above him, and he has a tree before him.” — Picatrix Bk.II Ch.10, p.105 of the Greer and Warnock translation.
Image of the Moon according to the opinion of Picatrix
This Image of the Moon was my second Picatrix image. I designed it during the Covid lockdown, at a point where I was struggling to draw at all, let alone draw magically inspired art. There are parts of it that bother me, now, but the way it actually came together in the metal is absolutely phenomenal.
It has, in fact, proven to be my second most popular planetary talisman (after Venus) and one of my best selling deigns overall. A little to my surprise, I have only had one insecure man asking me to hide the figure’s penis.
With all that said, I have to confess that, of the numerous images of the Moon presented in the Picatrix, this is only my second favorite. My actual favorite is far too complex for me to produce at my current skill level, and will surprise no one who has looked over the Picatrix images, is “…according to the opinion of Mercury is the form of a woman with a beautiful face, with a dragon about her waist, having horns on her head with two snakes encircling them, and with two more snakes above her head and a snake entwined around each of her arms, and a dragon above her head and another dragon under her feet, and both these dragons have seven heads.”
I think I’m going to have to make this poster-sized using either digital media or learn to paint. But I’m probably never going to be able cram it all into a one-inch-disk talisman.
As one would expect, Lunar talismans can be used for any lunar purpose – definitions of which, of course, vary wildly from one tradition to the next. Various Picatrix passages suggest lunar talismans to make the wearer happy, well-liked, safe, healthy, and fortunate, for protection while travelling and against evil. The invocation of the Moon (Book III, Ch 7, Para 33, pp 177-8, trans. Attrell & Porreca 2019) seems to be all-purpose, treating the luminary as an intercessor to any and all of the other planets.
For obvious reasons, silver – the metal of the moon – is the best choice for this talisman, but I also offer it in shibuichi and brass, for a more exotic look on the one hand and a more affordable purchase on the latter. As with all my pieces, this talisman is available as a coin, with an upeye for use as a pendant, or with three jump rings for use in a rosary-style necklace.
Each piece is hand-made to order in my home studio, with unique variations and defects as a result of the fabrication and casting process.
These talismans are NOT consecrated. That is your responsibility.
Astrological timing and consecration is available with a minimum of 30 days advance notice at an additional charge depending on the difficulty of the election.
If I were to hazard a guess about the most-ignored advice we all received as beginner witches, pagans, and mystics, it would be “practice daily”. There are lots of variations on that advice – meditate daily, journal daily, draw a tarot card daily, et cetera ad nauseum – but they all boil down to “touch base with spiritual / magical reality every day”. And we all say, “yeah, probably, but … what if I didn’t?” (Or maybe you’re one who said, “yes I must” but then … didn’t, anyway, and just felt super guilty about it. Or maybe you’re one of the perfect ones, and you can sit in the corner while I talk to everyone else.)
I have, to be clear, been in the first two categories at various times in my life. The times when I have managed to keep together a daily practice have historically been few and far between, and mostly no longer than a semester. (College was good for me.) So when I say that I am currently on the longest streak of my life to date, I like to think I’m coming from a relatable place of more failure than not. And in the trial and error process that brought me here, I think I’ve learned a few things that may be of use to others.
This streak began with the August Do Magic Challenge: thirty days of enchantment toward material outcomes. I failed the challenge – I missed a day, about ten days in, and of the thirty launched sigils, maybe six desires manifested – but … I won in the long run, I think. As I pursued my daily challenge, a series of visionary experiences shifted the approach from the sequential launch of a series of traditional Chaos Magick sigils to daily meditations with my familiar spirits, culminating in the assisted launch of those sigils. I also, through trial and error as much as spiritual instruction, learned a lot about what works for me, personally, in a daily ritual.
The terms of the challenge, if you don’t feel like checking out the link or wading through the page, were 30 minutes of daily ritual aimed at manifesting material results. I chose to fulfil those terms with 30 daily sigils, comprised of things I super duper wanted, things that would make my life a bit easier, and some things for which I had no real “lust of results”. I had grand schemes of making a spreadsheet to track which manifested and which didn’t.
When I started the challenge, I was launching them at night, 30 to 90 minutes before I went to bed. That was … fine, for days when I didn’t have much going on. But on days when I was running D&D, or throwing a late-night cast, or doing other magic, it was a real challenge that, ultimately, I didn’t live up to. One night I just didn’t have enough of me left to sit down at the altar a second time, and when I woke up in the morning I had lost the challenge. I already had all those sigils, though, so I soldiered on in search of an honorable mention.
I was not yet keeping good notes, at that time, so the order of operations was a little vague. I know that my familiar spirits had already taken an interest by that point. The ritual had not yet gotten much more elaborate than a sigil and a candle and perhaps incense offerings for my familiars.
Having determined, through failure, that nighttime ritual wasn’t working for me, I decided to try performing my ritual first thing in the morning. Now, I am very much not a morning person, but back in my college days and the Sunrise Temple, I had an ongoing ritual where every Sunday morning I would sit at my altar and share my first cups of coffee with my familiar spirits. So I brought that in to play: pouring libations, drawing the day’s sigil from the shuffled stack, drinking my coffee as I stared at the glyph, then finally lighting a candle when I was done.
Eventually, I made my way through all 30 sigils. Not many of my desires had manifested at that point, but I had already begun to receive useful and interesting instructions from my familiars. So I just kept going. And going. And going. Even up until today. And I think I’ve learned some things that may be of use to people beyond jut myself.
Part of the success of this streak has been that I have allowed the daily ritual to evolve with my needs and mood. The ritual, as I said, began with a candle and a sigil. I added an incense offering early on. Then coffee offerings. When the sigils were all launched, I added a planetary magic component: opening my Liber Spiritus to an appropriately illustrated page – featuring a magic circle and/or a transcribed prayer – and decorating the altar with talismans enchanted under the auspices of each planet. When I began a daily tarot practice in late September, early October, I incorporated that into the end of the ritual. Partially through creative inspiration, partly under the instruction of my familiars, I developed an opening ritual. Finally, some time in November, I added a journaling aspect.
I am now on my longest streaks of daily ritual, daily divination, and daily journaling of my entire life. I haven’t been perfect with any of them. There are days I haven’t been able to stand the thought of writing down what I have seen. There are days I was in too much of a hurry to draw a card. There have been days I’ve woken up to realize that I have run out of coffee, or candles, or incense, and been unable to perform the ritual. But my success rate has been so strong that I don’t feel like I’m cheating when I claim that the full six months.
So, what have I learned?
General
Start small and simple. Fuck the Q-Cross. Fuck the LBRP. Actually simple.
Start with a goal – a day count, a thing you’re praying or enchanting for.
If morning doesn’t work for you, try night. Or when you get home from work. Or after you walk the dog.
Find some form of external accountability. I know, I know. But I’m more internally accountable than almost anyone I’ve met, and “six month streak” is the best I’ve ever done.
Embrace imperfection. Not every page will be pretty. Not every ritual has clear results. Sometimes you’ll forget to do something. Just don’t quit.
The Ritual
Again, start small. A candle. A libation. Incense. Just one of them.
Again, external accountability: make the ritual an offering to your familiar spirit(s). If you don’t have familiars, make it your guides and guardians. Don’t have guides and guardians? Adopt a gnostic god. I recommend Baphomet. Abraxas, Lucifer, and Dionysus are also good picks. Every morning I pray to Baphomet to awaken his light within me and within the world. I can feel it burning, even now.
Again, if the ritual you try first doesn’t work: change it. If it feels like too much, pare it down. Pare it down more. Fewer components. Fewer gestures. Less time. Conversely, if it feels weak or stupid, dial it up. Cast a circle. Make more offerings. Perform more gestures. Shout at the quarters.
Daily Divination
Keep your deck by your altar at all times. Get a special deck for daily draws if you have to.
Use a simple system. Tarot is better than I Ching (for this). One card. Maybe two or three. Fuck the Celtic cross. Unless too simple is your problem, then make throwing the sticks (or coins) a huge production.
Again, external accountability: beg or bully your friends to start a Tarot group chat. Comment on their readings. Commiserate over bad days. Have fun tracking the overlaps. This will double as a group journal, and can serve as a backup if you forget to write things down in your “real” journal.
Journal
Keep your journal at your altar at all times.
Start with journaling about your daily ritual and divination. Fuck full sentences. My entries have grown to include astrological timing and sleep notes, but the core is: “Morning Ritual: strong contact no clear messages
Cards: Tower * 3P * 5S well shit”
I’m still working on coming back to journal about the weekly Venus offerings (another post) or anything that happens at one of the other house altars.
Decide in advance what you’ll do with days you miss. You might just date the next page and roll. I date the page and leave the rest blank, or scribble down as much as I can remember.
Again, again, again: the important thing is to find something that works for you. I like Picadilly (knockoff Molskine) journals tucked into my fancy leather Oberon cover. You might like leatherbound journals with fancy paper. Or 3M spiralbound notebooks. Or premade journals like the DM Kraig one from Llewellyn. If the first thing you try doesn’t click, try something else.
Conclusion
That last line is the key: “If the first thing you try doesn’t click, try something else.”
Remember that in Latin, “perfect” means “complete” and is a euphemism for “dead”. Perfection is a goal, not a practice, and certainly not a place to start.
Ancestor veneration has always been a thing. It has been central to many indigenous practices for millennia; it has been a part of diasporic traditions for centuries; it is arguably the basis of saint cults. I even knew of academically minded neo-Pagans doing it in the 1990s. Watching the meteoric rise of ancestor worship among white neo-Pagans over the five years, though, has been a trip.
I can’t get on the train. I keep having to ask myself, “Who
are these ancestors?” As far as I can tell, for most people that question seems
to conjure first an image of their beloved grandparents, and then of their
fantasies of Iron Age warriors and Neolithic wanderers, with little thought of
the centuries in between.
I too, think of my grandparents and great-grandparents. I
think of the racist jokes they told. Of the way they treated my mother and my
sister. Of how they always had a justification for police brutality. Of how
they ignored the AIDS crisis. How they opposed the Civil Rights movement. How
they may or may not have fought in the World Wars, but certainly did not oppose
the US genocides and apartheid state that inspired Hitler and the Nazis. How
they fought to preserve slavery in the Civil War. I do not find these deeds
worthy of veneration. Do you?
White people whose ancestors came to the United States
before the Civil War have even less to be proud of. How complicit were they in
displacing the indigenous population? Did they own slaves? Were they a part of
the original, most guilty, colonizing forces?
As a white person, when relating to other white people, I
always find a more-than-academic interest in ancestry to be a giant red flag.
That territory is rife with phrases like “Christian civilization”, “heritage
not hate”, “demographic twilight”, and “Jews will not replace us”. Other gems
include, “the Irish were slaves, too” and “well, sure, but the Natives weren’t
really using the land”.
Any white person interested in ancestor work of any kind
needs to grapple with some basic facts of history. The very category of
whiteness was invented to justify colonizing the New World: prior to that
ambition, the only pan-European identity that existed was Christendom, and the wars
of the Protestant Reformation will tell you exactly how unified that identity
was. Slavery existed before white people, but one of the very first things
“whiteness” did was to invent the most horrific form of slavery to ever be
conceived or implemented. White people implemented brutal and murderous empires
on a scale unknown in prior history. White people invented scientific racism.
White people continue to reap the benefits of this rapine and murderous
history, continue to hold the majority of the globe in abject subjugation.
Any white person interested in ancestor work also needs to
look to the present and grapple with the reality of which white people share
their interest in ancestry. Mormons, colonizing the dead through posthumous
baptism. Confederate sympathizers. Neo-liberal and neo-conservative apologists
who hide their racism behind “but our accomplishments”. White identitarians.
White supremacists.
White identity and white nationalist groups surged in
popularity following the 2008 election of Barrak Obama, the first Black
President of the United States. That surge included a new vigor in neo-Pagan
fascist groups like Odinism and the Asatru Folk Association. From where I sit,
the renewed interest in ancestor worship by “apolitical” and “mainstream” New
Agers and Pagans that I first saw in 2012/13 looks a lot like those ideas
filtering from the extreme toward the middle.
I’m not accusing every white person interested in ancestor
work of being a crypto-fascist. I’m saying that white people interested in
ancestor work cannot just handwave history away. I’m saying that white people –
white Pagans – cannot simply just jump from their “sweet old (probably racist,
homophobic, and imperialist) grandma” to their Iron Age progenitors without
dealing with everything in between. I’m saying that white people working with
their ancestors must address the crimes of our ancestors, and the
ill-gotten-gains that define our lives.
We must ask ourselves, “What do our ancestors truly deserve?”
White people who wish to venerate our ancestors must begin
by determining which ancestors are worthy of veneration. This is the work of
history. Of education.
When we make offerings to those who came before us, we must
name the deeds that make them worthy. The inventors. The scholars. The plumbers
and mechanics and crafters. The healers and care-takers.
And when we make offerings to those who came before us, we
must condemn the deeds that make them unworthy. The colonizers. The slave
traders. The slave holders. The rapists and murderers. The racists, the
misogynists, and the homophobes. The status quo warriors of prior ages.
White people who wish to venerate our ancestors must work to
atone for their crimes among the living. This is the work of feminism. Of
anti-racism. Of anti-colonialism. Of anti-fascism.
If white people – white Pagans – are to venerate our
ancestors, we must do so without nostalgia or sentimentality. Even as we lift
up the heroes of previous generations, we must bind our evil ancestors to
Tartaros. Or Hell. Or the Void. Anywhere but the mortal world where they can
continue the works they began in life. And we must fight their unrepentant
children who re-commit and deepen their crimes.
And we must beg forgiveness from the ghosts of those our
ancestors wronged.
August has been fucking bonkers, and super good for me in a lot of ways, but in all the hustle and bustle I forgot to make a major announcement here at the Obsidian Dream!
I’ve been talking about launching a podcast for literally years. One with Aradia. One with Kraken. One by myself. But it didn’t quite come together until the beginning of this year, when I began recording segments for my then-empty Patreon.
Friday, I finally launched the first episode of the Hidden Worlds Podcast. My interview subject was Emily Gabbert of the Kansas City Witches Meet-Up and Center Spiral Magazine. You can listen to the episode and see the show notes over at the Hidden Worlds blog. You can subscribe in your RSS-based podcatcher via this link. I’m working on getting it up and running on iTunes, Spotify, and all the other corporate curated spaces … that might take a couple more episodes to hammer out.
The Hidden Worlds podcast will consist of alternating interview and subject episodes, focusing on the visceral experiences of creating art and practicing magic. Unlike this blog, which hardcore targets the moderately experienced witch and magician, the Hidden Worlds blog and podcast will strive to be accessible to the more casual student of art and the paranormal. Every episode will end with the fun and exciting question: What Is The Strangest Thing That Has Ever Happened To You?
The podcast, like this blog, is free and will always be free. The only ads you will ever see or hear are for my own projects and/or the projects of my interviewees. But, because we live in the 21st century world of late stage capitalism on a dying world, I will beg you to support it out of the goodness of your own heart by backing me on Patreon. I have just finished revamping the tiers and rewards structure, as well as recording a pitch video. Please head over to my Patreon, laugh at the video, and consider pledging your support.
I mean, not all of it, obviously. I’m not dead yet. Still walking and talking. I even accomplished some really amazing and important things that, in the rear view mirror, may eventually loom larger than the sucking. But for the most part, I spent this year crashing and burning after the stress and betrayals and hurts and failures of the awful year that came before.
People better known and more clever than I have been joking for months that 2018 was absolutely no less than three years long. I deeply resonate with that. Looking back at the first two thirds of this year, I can’t even say for sure what happened when because there doesn’t seem to be enough time for that much to have happened.
For that matter, the first third of this year blurs together with the last months of 2017. There was an awful lot of suck. Frankly, I don’t even know how to get into it without being accused of rumor mongering and poo-flinging, which is a large part of my radio silence over the last year and a half. The short version is that, following my departure from the HSA in November/December of 2017, I withdrew from public participation in the KC Pagan community entirely and lost a few friends along the way. I then proceeded to bleed on everyone within anime-blood-spray distance, and things only got more unpleasant from there.
Hands down, this has been the worst year for my mental health since 2004, which I spent almost exclusively hiding in the basement of The House on Shoal Lane. It even beat out Fall Semester 2012, which featured daily panic attacks and more reasons I will never trust a mental health professional. As unpleasant as it was to be around me, it was even worse to be me.
At the same time, there were some truly amazing accomplishments.
Even as other parts of my life were burning down around my ears, I spent the first three months of 2018 putting the final polish on my debut novel, getting the typesetting just right, and ultimately putting The Mark of the Wolf in print. I am now a published author. Bucket list item checked.
At some point last winter, a friend admitted to me that he was the proud owner of an under-used farrier’s forge. Over the summer, he, Kraken, and I set about teaching ourselves blacksmithing. I won’t say that we’re experts (or even very good), but I have now made three knives (mostly; I need to get a chainmail glove before I try to put an edge on them). Bucket list item checked.
(Between those two accomplishments, I have done everything that I dreamed of as a sixth-grade satyr. My childhood vision of my life is complete.)
After a year of trying and failing to get a D&D game off the ground, I launched my first 5th Edition campaign in a brand-new homebrew setting in March. The campaign is still going strong and a bunch of people I barely (if at all) knew are now my friends. While nothing compared to the preceding or following accomplishments, this is my first campaign since I stopped gaming for college in 2011, and has been one of my chief points of stability amidst the madness.
In June, the private working group Aradia and I have been hosting passed it’s one-year mark. At Samhain we came up with a motto.
At midnight New Years, as 2018 becomes 2019, I will have been with my primary partner Aradia for ten fucking years. This is an accomplishment that I did not, could not, envision as a child. Or even as an adult. Frankly, I’m struggling to wrap my head around any one putting up with me for that long even as it’s happening.
After a year long hiatus from public ritual, Aradia, Chirotus, and I submitted an application to perform a public ritual at Paganicon 2019. We were accepted, and our Classically-inspired purification ritual is currently scheduled to go just before the opening ceremony. (No pressure.)
In retrospect, regardless of how awful 2017 was, I think that a collapse this year was both inevitable and necessary. 2018 was the first year since 2011 (when I started Real Liberal Arts College in Sunrise, Indiana) that I haven’t been burning the candle at both ends. I knew since April that what I needed was isolation. It took till July or August before I got to the point where I just stopped returning messages. I should have just told (more) people that I needed to go away for a while and just done that instead of waiting until I Just Couldn’t Anymore and ghosting. I guess we’ll see in the coming months how badly those bridges are burned.
I want to end this on some clever note, maybe something upbeat. I don’t have it in me. But here we are, on the cusp of the new year. At risk of tempting fate, I’ll just take this moment to tell 2018 to fuck right off. You didn’t kill me, you fucking fuck. To the rest of you: raise a toast tonight to your own divinity, if nothing else. Raise one to the rest of us if you have it in you. I’ll see you all on the flip side.
It is a common fallacy among writers, or so I am told, to see our own lives as a narrative arc. I am more guilty of this than most. I know that it is a fallacy. I know that real life is, for better and worse, much, much stranger than fiction. I know that mortal lives are always messier than that. And yet … the arc of a story remains the chief frame through which I experience the world.
The last chapter of my life began when, upon graduating college, I moved back to Kansas City. I returned to the mall jewelry store where I had spent the previous six years, off and on. I volunteered with the organization that puts on the festival that had been the highlight of my year since 1999. I got involved in a relationship with someone who, though the romance didn’t last, has proved one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I buckled down and finished my first novel, and successfully ran a Kickstarter to start a publishing company to print that novel. I started producing jewelry of my own design, mostly for myself and my closest friends, but solid work that I’m proud of. I took up a whole new art, photography, which I grow better at each time I pick up my camera.
In December of this year, I formally resigned from all my positions and responsibilities within the festival organization. In February, I released my novel into the world. In March I taught one of my energy work classes at the Witches’ Meet-Up, my first class hosted outside the HSA. All this to say, I believe that these events mark the start of a new chapter in my life. I don’t know, precisely, what the road will look like, but it is my hope that it ends with me as a full time professional Pagan. I’m already working in a Pagan jewelry store. I have just released a Pagan novel. I am building a small repertoire of workshops on magical technical skills.
In the last chapter of my life, I took on too much responsibility, too quickly, without adequately vetting the people I was working with. In this next chapter of my life, I hope to deepen my personal practice, to deepen the relationships that survived the previous chapter, and to make more art.
Hey, friends! Do you live within an easy drive of the KC Metro Area? Are you free the weekend of Sunday 2o May? You should come to Aquarius Books and join me for the official release event for my novel!
I’ll be doing the usual book signing party things: reading a passage, taking questions, telling stories. There will be snacks and beverages. There will be a limited number of copies of the book available for purchase on site, but if you don’t trust your luck you can contact me directly (the preferred method) or purchase your copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or possibly even your local bookstore. There will be some giveaway items, and possibly some prints of my occult art available for purchase.
Austin Coppock and Chris Brennan have described this era of Saturn in Capricorn as one of “credit where credit is due” and “reaping the fruits of your labors” … or, alternately, putting in the work for which you will ultimately be paid. This has certainly been true of my experience so far.
In the second week of December, I found some hidden reserve of motivation and kicked everything in to high gear. I did a photoshoot with a friend, trading modelling time for a custom pendant for a stone she had just acquired. I made so much jewelry for Christmas presents it’s not even funny. I found the strength to formally sever my ties with the HSA, following debacles that I may or may not yet discuss.
In the first weeks of January, I set myself to re-mastering lapidary stonecutting, producing the first several pieces in a series of labradorite cabochons set in sterling silver. At the same time, I also redoubled my efforts to finish editing and printing my debut novel, The Mark of the Wolf. By the end of January, I had finished the wax for the art-trade pendant and had ordered the print proofs for the novel.
In February, I made the final edits to The Mark of the Wolf and began shipping my Kickstarter backers their rewards. I’m still working on that, but every little bit is a weight off of my shoulders. I paid my debt to Bune, who helped boost my income over the last three months. I have cast and finished and delivered the pendant for my friend who modelled for me, and can now with clear conscience begin sharing the images we made. At the same time, I cast up a beautiful amber pendant that I’ve been wanting to make since I got that lot of raw black amber back in, what, October? I’ve even gotten that D&D game off the ground, the one I’ve been trying to recruit players for literally a year.
Today is the first of March. Last night I submitted my paperback for mass distribution. Tonight I’ll do the same for the hardback edition of The Mark of the Wolf. Then I’ll just have the rest of my kickstarter rewards to ship out, and I’ll be able to fully commit myself to promoting the novel and finishing the sequel, already in progress.
My goal for 2018 is to clear my plate of as many existing projects as possible. To pay my debts and free up my mind so that I can pursue my larger goals with greater fervor and fewer distractions. Highlights of the remaining to-do list include:
Finish delivering my Kickstarter rewards.
Hammer down a first draft of The Rise of the Necromancer, sequel to Mark of the Wolf.
Go back over my occult-themed photoshoots and put together a coherent collection.
Design a graduation ring for a friend from college about to get her masters.
Design an engagement ring for a different college friend about to get married.
Finish re/processing my photography from the pre-Lighroom era.
Tonight’s meditative act consisted of pouring the candles for my second week of devotional prayer, which will be devoted to Baphomet, god/dess of Chaos Magick and fucking queers.
My first round of candles I poured in a single stage. Research in the interim has revealed that other kinds of wax don’t take that well, but because I chose soy it worked out mostly fine. I say mostly, because I did have trouble with the bottoms of the wicks drifting to the sides of the jars. In four cases, that only resulted in scorching the glass a little; in the fifth, it resulted in the bottom of the jar blowing out.
With that in mind, I poured the wax in two stages: melting a little in my pot, pouring just a finger’s worth in the bottom of each jar, and then carefully lowering the wicks in to the center of the cooling wax. By the time I’d melted enough wax to add any substantial amount to the jars, the bottom layer had cooled and I was able to pull the wicks taut and center.
While I waited on the wax to melt, I chanted the name Baphomet incessantly and channeled as much energy as I could into the melting wax and the vessels.
As a full time artisan, it was so easy it almost felt like cheating. That’s not to say that I had no intrusive thoughts — lovers, present past and prospective; holiday drama; shit, don’t light that on fire — but the Zone, toward which all artists strive, is only a half-step from meditative trance even under the worst circumstances. I find the Zone very easily, particularly while working on magical arts.
I think, though, that it was the correct choice. Following a week-plus-one of the intense spiritual and emotional labor of prostrating myself before the god I’ve been courting off and on for the last decade … it was both soothing and cathartic to take a lower-stakes route to meditation.
My original plan had been to begin my meditations Monday by making the first round of candles, which would be dedicated to Dionysos. Unfortunately, Sunday night I cut my hand badly while doing dishes, and that plan was immediately scrapped. I can’t make candles or build altars without reopening the wound at this stage. Taking this as something of a sign, I spent yesterday coddling my hand, reading actual printed words, and living life unplugged from the internet.
I type this post, now, entirely left handed, still full of peace from my first day of real leisure since … I don’t remember when. I spent all of yesterday reading, and half of today. Depending on how quickly my hand heals, and how far behind I get as a result of this setback, it will be the 11th or the 18th before I start the Do Magick challenge.
Sitting still for a day felt so good, though, that I cant quite bring myself to be upset by this delay. I think that my meditations will be improved by the slowdown.
In the meantime I will continue my research. I’ve ploughed through Detienne and bookmarked both the Homeric and Orphic hymns, but Otto and Burkurt yet await. And I still have a lot of art to dig up.
